The Non-volatile Systems Laboratory

The Non-volatile Systems
Laboratory (NVSL) was founded in 2008 and focuses on developing hardware and software prototypes
to understand the hardware,software, security, and reliability
implications of non-volatile, solid-state memories. These
memories are poised to fundamentally alter the role of
persistent state in computing systems:

Their increased performance (between 1,000x and 1,000,000x
faster that disk) gives us the chance fundamentally rethink how operating systems manage and
use non-volatile state

Their reduced power consumption relative to both disk and
DRAM mean they will play a key role in enabling "green" and "energy porportional" computing
systems.

For embedded systems,
advanced non-volatile memories can fullfill the promise of a "universal
memory," playing the part of both DRAM and disk.

Their enormous density (relative to DRAM) and speeed
(relative to disk) make them an essential component in emerging
high-perfomance, data-centric
computing systems.

At the same time, these technologies present difficulty (and exciting!)
challenges:

Many of the technologies (especially flash) have durability
limitations and require careful engineering to ensure system-level reliability.

The complexity of flash-based, solid-state disks (e.g., in
cell phones and palm tops) raise security
concerns because "deleted" data can easily be retreived.

Sponsors

Publications

Tools and Prototypes

To understand the role that solid state will play in future systems, we
are building a series of prototypes. The first is the Zarkov I
cluster (pictured below). It provides a complete computing
cluster (running
full-fledged Linux) with a tightly integrated solid state storage array
that support both NAND flash and emerging non-volatile
technologies.